Brutal, and Brilliant

Although I finished reading this one several weeks ago, it has taken me a while absorb it, to get over the shock of it, you might say. Blood Meridian is often hailed as probably Cormac McCarthy's best work, and it rated third, as I recall, in a recent survey of the best works of fiction in the past twenty-five years in the New York Times Book Review; upon reading it myself, I'd have to agree.

This book has a fairly notorious reputation; many have difficulty getting through its pages, for the constant and unrelenting violence found there. Perhaps more amazing, this brutal tale has much basis in fact - there was an infamous "Glanton gang" that ravaged the southwest territories, into Mexico, around 1850. There was (at least in one participant's account) an individual called Judge Holden, one of the most remarkable, and frightening, characters in American literature, according to one noted critic.